As we have been having this trouble with KELA, we keep hearing surprises every day.
The recent news is that the court in Turku ruled against the tax office,
http://www.mtv3.fi/uutiset/kotimaa.shtml/arkistot/kotimaa/2007/06/540203
Basically, the shipyard workers received instruction from the tax office and acted accordingly. And then later on the tax office had a different intrepretation of the cases and demanded tax back-payment.
The arguement is about "luottamuksen suoja", in other words, "luottamusperiaate", the "principle of trust". Practically it is about the idea that everyday life citizens should be able to trust the advices and instructions given by the tax office officials, even though the advices and instructions are given verbally only.
That should be a pretty basic matter of everyday life, right? If I do not know about an official matter, then I go and ask the officials, and act accordingly. And to be sure about the information and instruction I have just received, I do not need to be a paranoid, conspiracy theorists, overly pessimistic or even having obsessive-compulsive disorders to ask about the same matter from different officials, again and again.
But then, looking at this court case, our trouble, and so many other friends who have had problems with KELA, seemingly, there is no trust. Well, so, where does this distrust stop then? What about the immigration office? The police? When you need to build a house, get a driving license, get a hunting permit, register your new marriage, adopt a child ... ?
As for KELA, (my favorite agency nowadays!) a friend was just telling about an example. When his wife was still studying, she shared an apartment with several people: a university student of economics, one of sociology, one of laws and one that works in KELA itself. One day one of them received a two-page letter about some instructions for a certain student money matter. All of them TOGETHER could not understand what the instructions were about.
Well, even with the instructions on paper, you cannot even seem to understand what the officials tell you, maybe putting trust in phone conversation or verbal communication is already a bit far off. As shipyard works, students, pregnant women, private entrepreneurs, normal taxpayers or even KELA own workers cannot quite trust what the officials tell them, this is sure a sorry situation.
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I had unpleasant experience last winter. As Bulgaria wasn't in EU yet and I was in Finland more than 3 months i needed to leave the country. I was told by uvi.fi that just by leaving Finland the 3 months would reset and i can come back and stay more. Thus, I decided to visit Estonia for one day trip just to discover back on the finnish custom that i can't enter the country due to i already stayed more than 3 months before.
The good thing is that the custom officials happened to be decent people as they issued me a short term visa for free.
I was told by them that they could fined me for the overstay and the visa costed like 60 euros.
A quick comment from the bushes:
I think there's no way the decision of Kela will change, since it's done appropriately.
What you perhaps could try is shoot for compensation/damages for wrong information from the Bureau (or the accountant if (s)he not too much a friend) and try to get Kela compensate for the losses due to raising the salary instead of paying extra/sufficient YEL.
Secondly, one lesson I've learned is that every instruction and whatnot from state bureaucracy (and everywhere else as well) with any major significance has to be in written form.
That of course is what we have learnt the hard way now. Every time we call Kela these days about something, we make sure we have the person's name, ask them to send us the information on paper and email. And we also ask twice or three times the same question from different officials.
That sounds kind of maniac but that is what many friends and people have told us to do.
Without being nasty or mean, one thing we wonder is how much the Kela officials themselves like to work this way. People do not stand up and fight, the workers and officials do not want to make a change, the system lives on.
Now, going to court is actually our only choice, which I have written more about in the next episode in this blog.
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